Summerville Lake and the New River Gorge

As we were driving towards WV, it popped into my mind that there was a bridge, a really high bridge that they either bungee jumped off or parachuted off or something.  Jan looked it up on her phone and sure enough the New River Gorge bridge, which used to be the second highest bridge in the US at 876', and is now the 3rd highest, was just 10 miles down the road from our campground.  And for those of you like me that wondered what is higher, it's the Royal Gorge Bridge in Cañon City, CO at 955', and the newly constructed Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge at 890' just below the Hoover Dam.  They close the bridge one day a year on the 3rd Saturday of October for Bridge Day when you can walk across the bridge, it is normally closed to foot traffic, and parachute off if you so desire, no Jan and I will not be coming back to do that!

From the viewing platform

From the old bridge built in 1902

So after we got the bridge covered, we wanted to do a little exploring to include a few hikes.  Summerville Lake is really beautiful, 28,000 acres with 60 miles of shoreline.  It is very clear water and is surrounded by sandstone cliffs.  We found a hike to Long Point, a rocky point on a curve of the lake.  It was a pretty nice 4 mile trail in the deep woods, now I should mention while we have been here we have been plagued with rain showers, clouds, and high humidity, so add that to the dense woods, it made for a pretty sticky and buggy trail, but very pretty.

Our trail

Beautiful rhododendrons

View from the end of the trail

Looking back at Long Point from a viewpoint

Pretty rugged

We were both pretty soaked by the time we got back, so we cleaned up, and went down to the bridge visitor center.

Lots of rafting here

So kind of by accident we found the old road that winds down along the side of the gorge and over the old bridge and as we were climbing back up out of the gorge, almost getting run over by all the rafting buses returning from the river, we found what looked like another interesting hike to the Kaymoor Mine ruins that was described as a one way 2 mile hike, perfect, we'll come back and do it.

Meanwhile we learned of the Sandstone Falls and there was a gorgeous picture of it in the visitor center.  It said it had a nice 3/4 mile loop trail and a picnic area, so off we went with our picnic lunch the next day.  It is the largest waterfall on the New River, about 1500' across with a height from 10' to 25'.

A small view from above

Rocky and constantly changing

Not a bad spot for a picnic

Another view

The interesting thing about getting there is you have to go south about 7.5 miles past the falls, cross the river and drive back up to the walkway.  All good but wow we can tell you, there are NO flat or straight roads in WV!  In fact some of the numbered routes are so narrow you can't pass a car without stopping and getting to a spot where you squeeze through!

A main road in WV!

It was a nice drive, picnic, and walk around the falls.  The GPS almost got us lost on a tiny dirt and mud road on the way back, but we got it figured out.

So today we went back to the Kaymoor Mine hike, and it was pretty nice, again, the humidity, dripping trees, and the heat made it a bit wet, Karen, you can be glad in a way you weren't able to make it because this was truly "oppressive humidity"!  And I was a bit miffed at first as our fairly level hike went right up the mountain for the first 1/2 mile!  But it was good and enjoyable.

A waterfall across the trail

One of the mine openings

This is a vent and the cold air was just pouring out!

Basically, all that is left

A view from the mine site

About 800 people worked at this mine that was open from 1900 to 1962, there was a community along the river some 500' below and another settlement about 500' above.  The pay in the 1902 was about $1/day for a 10 hour day, now the thing that got me was reading that the vein of coal in this mine was 36" thick, so the area the miners worked in was about that high!  Can you imagine 10 hours a day and most of it working in a space that small, and they went on further that this was considered a fairly thick vein!!  All in all 16,900,000 tons of coal were produced here.

The vegetation is so thick you can't really appreciate the location of this mine on the face of the gorge like you can out west with few trees to obscure the view.  There was a set of steps, 800 in fact that would take you down the 560' feet to the river below, we opted not to do that:-)

Had a nice walk out, all down hill you know.  So now we are bracing for more thunderstorms and getting ready to leave tomorrow for Gettysburg.

A pretty fungus beside the trail

Water flowing everywhere